


Nine Point Eight Meters Per Second Squared

by poisontaster



Series: Light 'Verse [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hangover, Infidelity, M/M, Sibling Incest, Undecided Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-29
Updated: 2006-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The acceleration due to gravity on the Earth's surface at sea level is defined as 9.80665 m/s<sup>2</sup>.  Immediately after Needful Things.  Sam started <i>something</i>, but neither of them knows what comes next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine Point Eight Meters Per Second Squared

Marta—their neighbor, friend and Dean's emergency babysitter—is gone and Lena's heating formula in the microwave when they walk in the door. The way her eyes cut at him would leave blood if he let it. There's a bruise—'bruise', ha—on her collarbone and another on the opposite side of her neck, up by her jaw. He's conscious of his own marks even as his stomach clenches up tight and sour.

"Where you've been?" Lena asks, her Russian accent a little thicker in the mornings. At one time, he thought that was sort of cute. At one time, he thought a lot of things were cute.

Dean hooks a thumb at Sam, lurking hangover-pale in the doorway behind him. "Lawyer-boy here got blotto last night and needed a baby-sitter to get him home and make sure he didn't drown in his own puke."

Lena's lips and eyes thin but she doesn't say anything and, a second later, the microwave beeps. "I'll feed the twins," Dean offers, reaching out fast and putting his hand over the microwave door before Lena can press the button. Lena's not always good about making sure the formula's not too hot. Patience isn't her strong suit. "Can you make Sam some coffee? I'll make breakfast as soon as I'm done." Cooking isn't her strong suit either and Dean's got years of meals made for Sam and their father under his belt.

"Aw, you don't have to go through any trouble," Sam says hastily, coming around Dean. "I know where everything is. Why don't I make the coffee?"

Sam's never liked Lena though he's always polite enough to her. But the fake-hyperactivity in is voice gives him away; he's nervous. Dean feels something inside himself fracture and shear in two, sharing space uneasily under his skin. It feels...profound. It feels like an epiphany when he realizes: this is how it's going to be from now on. Going to Sam, fucking him, unburying all this baggage between them has changed everything and nothing. There's just no way for Dean to remain whole and bridge the gap. Even if he never touches Sam again, even if Sam never touches him, there's always going to be this divide and he can't cover it up anymore. It goes too deep.

"Make enough for me too," he says, pouring formula into two bottles as neatly as he distributes rock salt into brass casings. He's always been good at the concrete things.

"I am going to shower," Lena announces, her tone still curdled and flat. "I take my coffee..."

"Double cream, two sugars," Sam says, looking down at his feet, his hands fisted and bunched into his pockets, shoulders hunched. "I remember."

Lena sniffs and turns on one small, bare heel. Dean follows her with a bottle in either hand but he stops in the kitchen doorway to look back at Sam. Sam's eyes are on him, the expression in them at once confused and angry. _Why did you bring me here?_

Dean doesn't know what or how to answer so he just smiles, his best _everything's cool, man_ smile. Slowly—too fucking slowly—Sam's own smile wakens, fragile as blown glass. Dean ducks his head.

Kait is still asleep, chewing wetly on one fat fist and her eyes scrunched up tight, but Evan is awake, gurgling secret baby messages to his slowly turning mobile—an ugly thing with clowns that Dean hates with a fiery passion but Lena won't let him throw away. "Hey buddy," he greets his son, all thoughts of Lena's late nights or even Sam expunged from his mind by the sight of his kids. It's a little alarming sometimes, how easy and fast he fit into this stereotypical mode of "Dad", but he can't pretend it didn't happen. It doesn't matter anymore, what a horror his marriage has become, when he looks at them—Miria, the oldest at three and Kait and Evan, just past the six month mark with a sigh of relief from father and uncle alike. They are the one thing he knows he's done completely right.

"I don't like it," Lena says suddenly from behind him, drawing him out of the pleasant refuge of his thoughts.

He scoops an arm under Evan and pulls him up without losing his grip on the bottle in the other hand. "Don't like what?"

She's stripped down to just her towel, thin blonde hair cascading loose over small shoulders. He sees another blotch just over the curve of her left breast and feels something blow through him like wind. She waves an irritated hand. "The hunting is bad enough—the calls at all hours, the days you miss at work, the injuries that must be explained to your children..."

"They're too young to know anything about it," Dean protests.

"They will not always be so young, Dean," Lena says ominously. "And that is not the point. The point is that I permit the hunting because I know you and Sam have this... _need_ to do this..."

"Permit? _Permit_?"

"But I will not have you partying with him all the time like you are still seventeen and have no responsibilities," Lena says over his spluttering.

Dean's eyes narrow. "Because that's really more _your_ thing and you don't like me cutting in on your action, right, honey?" he asks savagely. Evan makes an indignant blurp and Dean looks down to see he's let the nipple slip away. He tilts the bottle again and Evan wriggles and hums, blowing milk bubbles around the rubber nib. "It was one night, Yelena."

"And I am saying I do not wish there to be a second."

"Yeah, well I don't think you need to worry much about that," Dean mutters. It's a thought that hasn't occurred to him, though, and for the first time since he hazily picked up his buzzing phone, Dean gives himself a second to wonder where the hell all this is going, or if it's going anywhere at all.

_I miss you._

Dean turns away because it's too much, remembering it, remembering it with his whole body, while Lena looks at him.

"Sam is grown," Lena says. "He doesn't need you. Your children need you."

"It was _one night_ ," Dean repeats through gritted teeth. _And what the fuck do you know about how much Sam needs me or not?_

"And I am saying to you again: do not let there be a second." Lena turns then, as if that's the end of it. And though Dean would half like to strangle Lena with her own long hair, he lets her go without saying any more. Sam's here and even though the kids are young as they are, he doesn't like fighting in front of them.

Besides, it might all be a moot point anyway.

Kait lets out a loud, gasping breath—which is the closest she ever really gets to crying—and Dean moves back to the crib to smile down at her. "Hello, gorgeous." Kait looks up at him and grins hugely, thick limbs flailing and bouncing.

"Black coffee, double strong," Sam announces, coming to the doorway with two mugs. He looks slightly less freaked out but more exhausted. Dean wants to shove him downstairs and onto the couch and make him sleep for many, many hours, but Sam wouldn't go. Dean nods toward the dresser for Sam to deposit the coffee. Sam then comes to stand next to Dean at the crib. His shoulders brush Dean's and Dean has to remind himself that he doesn't have to pull away, put that safe minimum distance between them. In theory, anyway. Kat looks up at Sam and her smile gets wider, with an added happy gurgle.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Sam says thoughtfully, "but I live in a state of constant amazement that you _made_ these." He reaches down and lets Kait curl her little fingers around one of his. It doesn't even go all the way around. She promptly brings it to her mouth to chew.

"Ah, hell, so do I," Dean admits, eyeing the level in the bottle. Evan's sleepy-slack, eyes half-lidded and his belly taut and round. He usually goes back down for a couple hours after the morning bottle. "They're pretty awesome, right?"

"The best," Sam agrees, but he sounds distant, making Kait giggle as they wrestle for control of his finger. Even with his belt on, Sam's pants ride low on his hips and Dean wants to brush across the too-sharp dip between Sam's waist and the upper edge of his boxers, right at the swelling curve of his ass, bared as Sam's tee rides up and his pants slip down.

 _Sometimes it's all I can do to_ not _touch you_

Yeah; Dean knows that feeling.

"Can I help?" Sam asks, looking up, and Dean drags his eyes from that strip of brown skin. By Sam's face he knows Sam caught him looking but, unlike the other times, it doesn't result in embarrassing awkwardness. The corner of Sam's mouth quirks and he cocks his hip a little, widening the gap.

"Think you can handle feeding Kait?" Dean asks, nodding at the second bottle next to his coffee. It feels like the air is too thick and he feels both tired and lightheaded—no wonder—his stomach cramping a little with the craving for caffeine. "She's pretty easy, 'specially for her Uncle Sammy."

Kait crows as if to confirm the point and Sam smiles and bends to scoop her up. Sometimes, watching Sam with them, Dean feels this totally weird sense of vertigo; the feeling that Sam is the one that's supposed to be the one with the wife and kids and mortgage and he should just be their wildly inappropriate and utterly cool Uncle Dean who breezes into town between hunts, spoils them rotten and drifts out on a wink and a smile. It hits him, this sense of _wrongness_ , like they've been jumbled around in someone's haste and their roles are all mixed up.

 _Hell_ , he thinks, _I don't even know if Sam's seeing anybody._

The thought's ugly to him though he knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on here. Evan smacks his lips noisily, alerting his father that he's done with breakfast. Dean puts the bottle aside guiltily and hoists Evan to his shoulder, rubbing his back in firm circles and patting.

"You're good at this," Sam says suddenly.

Dean turns back towards Sam and shrugs. "Had lots of practice."

"With me."

There's some note in Sam's voice he can't quite catch. He hates it when Sam plays these verbal games that Dean can't quite avoid and can't ever win. "Yeah, with you," he agrees. "So what?"

But Sam just nods, kind of jerky, and looks down at Kait again, concentrating harder than Dean thinks a simple bottle-feeding should warrant. Dean goes back to trying to coax a burp out of Evan, who's stubborn about these things. If he listens hard enough, he can hear Lena singing Bob Seger in Russian over the hiss and gurgle of the shower.

"I'm sorry," Sam says suddenly. Dean snaps back into his own skin and finds Sam looking at him with that same dark unhappiness that makes Dean feel so pissed and helpless.

"For what?" It comes out kind of harsh and Evan wriggles a little in protest, requiring some rebalancing.

"For this." With both hands occupied, Sam resorts to a little head wobble that could mean anything. "For last night. I know…"

"Don't." Dean doesn't…he can't stand it, to hear Sam apologize for it. To somehow try and take it back. His voice shakes a little when he says, "Please," but he thinks it's fast enough that Sam doesn't notice.

Sam looks at him and rocks from foot to foot while Kait feeds and Dean can't read the expression there. Dean looks back and, even from the inside, he doesn't know what shows on his own face. He remembers coming inside Sam, how it felt, with Sam shaking tight around him, the sound of Sam's scraped voice chanting, "Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop…" He remembers how tight he held on.

The bathroom door opens and Lena's singing gets louder, this time Britney Spears and in English. He hates that he knows that. Sam's eyes drop and Evan finally lets out a huge belch that rocks his whole rotund body. It's followed by a quick-shot of two more, not quite as loud. Dean grins, delighted.

"I should make breakfast," he says, walking over to put Evan back down in the crib. The kid gives him the most satisfied, half-lidded smile and Dean feels his heart pinch.

"Okay."

"Eggs and bacon all right or is that too low-class for a high-powered lawyer like yourself?"

Sam's smile is slow to respond but real. "I think I can choke it down without dying of shame. For you, you understand."

Dean clasps both hands over his heart. "Well, we're just so honored you'd grace our humble home with your exalted presence," he says. "Bonehead." He jabs Sam lightly in the shoulder.

"Hey, careful!" Sam says nervously, flinching away. "Live cargo here."

Dean points a finger at him. "First of all, you call my daughter cargo again and I'll break your face. Second of all, for all your abnormal and mutant largeness, you are not actually a clumsy man—which, believe me, is a miracle you should be on your knees thanking God for every day."

"How about you shut the hell up and make my breakfast?" Sam says, though he's still got a bit of deer-in-headlights look. "Mr. Lawyer-Man is very hungry and I was lured here with the promise of food."

Dean flips him off and exits the nursery. Downstairs he finds Miria sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice and at least that much spilled in a puddle around the glass. She only looks about half-awake but somehow found the time to don her satin princess cape over her nightgown. It's pink. Of course.

"Hey kiddo," he says, tearing off a generous wad of paper towels and handing them to her.

"Hi, Dad," she sighs with all the emo a three-year old can muster. Which, it turns out, is quite a lot. She must get that from Sam. She takes the towels gamely and starts mopping the spill.

"Have a little trouble with the orange juice?"

"Yeah." Another treble sigh, more pathetic than the first. "It was heavy."

"Well, how 'bout next time you ask me or Mom for help?" She offers him the bunch of sopping paper towels and he snags the garbage can and brings it close so she can toss them.

"I'm sticky," Miria says and holds up her hands. Dean swoops her up into the air, the cape swirling around her as she giggles. " _Dad_ , I'm _sticky_."

Dean carries her over to the sink and holds her while she washes her hands with fussy thoroughness, suds dripping from her fingers. "And how do eggs sound for breakfast?" he asks, watching her blot and dry her fingers with the same deliberate care, bemused. Miria doesn't mind being covered head to toe in filth as long as her hands are clean. He doesn't know where she gets _that_ from. Not from him, that's for sure. But sometimes he likes to amuse himself with the image of her on a hunt, fussing about grave dirt and blood under her nails.

Not that he's a hundred percent sure he wants her to be a hunter. But it's a funny thought.

Miria twirls in uneven circles around the kitchen floor, arms flung out and the cape scalloping out behind her. "C'n I have cereal instead?"

"Sure." Dean gets the stuff down from the cabinets. "What do you think about hot dogs for lunch, huh? On the grill? Today's kind of a special day for Uncle Sammy."

"Uncle Sammy's coming?" Miria stops spinning and totters unsteadily on her pudgy legs. "Is it his birthday?"

"Nope. Uncle Sammy's birthday is in May, remember? We had a party and everything."

"Oh _yeah_." Miria climbs up into the chair closest the cereal and pours a small mountain into her bowl. Some of it slops out onto the table but he knows she'll eat those too. "So what's special?"

"I passed a really big test," Sam says, ducking a little under the door frame. He doesn't need to do it, the door frames are plenty tall enough, Dean thinks sourly. He just does it to be a show off. Four extra inches and he thinks he's a giant.

"Uncle Sammy!" Miria shouts and jumps down to throw herself at Sam's legs.

There's spit up on Sam's shirt. Patting Miria's back awkwardly, Sam sees Dean looking and plucks the shirt away from his skin with two fingers. "We had a bit of an accident," Sam grins sheepishly.

"So I see," Dean says, snorting. The laundry is right next to the kitchen; Sam mooching in his wake, Dean snags a clean shirt off the dryer and holds his hand out for the dirty one. Sam doesn’t give it up right away and Dean looks over to see Sam stripping off the tee slow as molasses. Not like he's sore, Dean thinks dimly, his ears roaring (which Dean would understand) but more like he's putting on a show, every inch of tanned skin on teasing display.

Dean feels angry about it at the same time he reaches to run his fingers lightly across Sam's stomach, which quivers under his fingertips. Sam's face is obscured by cloth, but Dean hears the sharp intake of his breath and when Sam emerges tousle-haired and blushing, his eyes are huge and dark, inviting whatever Dean wants to do with him.

 _Sometimes it's all I can do to_ not _touch you._

Dean thinks about Sam bent over the washer, shuddering and moaning while Dean pounds into him, loud enough to make the metal clang. He thinks about Sam on his knees, humming around Dean's cock and looking up through those long lashes and untidy hair. And then he thinks about his wife upstairs and his three year old in the next room and the twins.

Dean looks away and shoves the clean shirt at Sam, snatches the dirty one from his fingers and turns away to throw it in the washer. They have three kids; there's plenty of other laundry to be done. As Dean sorts through it, throwing things at half-blind random in the machine, he's aware of his pulse racing hard, throbbing painful behind his eyes.

When he's done and the washer is chugging busily, Sam is gone. Dean rubs his hand over his face and comes away with a palmful of sweat. He wipes it away and goes to make breakfast.

***

Sam picks over spicy, cheesy eggs with his fork, grateful for once that Miria is a chatty and active child more than capable of covering his silence. Because he doesn't know what to say, that's for sure. He doesn't know why he agreed to come here with Dean, hung-over and scraped raw. He doesn't know why Dean even wants him here. He's got no business being here.

But if he's listing out his regrets, he's going to be here a long fucking time, starting with getting drunk and calling Dean in the first place. Not that he didn't want to, you understand. Because he really, really did. But that's the problem. He doesn't remember everything he said to Dean, but he recalls enough to feel embarrassed, exposed. He's tried hard to let Dean move on past him.

And yet shame apparently isn't enough to stop him, because he keeps looking at Dean, trying to catch his eyes, trying to get Dean to look at him, trying to see some inkling that Dean still wants him now that the fucking is over and it's the cold light of day.

He hates that he's like this. Hates that he's screwed up things so badly that he has to beg for scraps when Dean should be his. When Dean _was_. When he had Dean—and his trust—once and pissed it all away for reasons he doesn't even understand himself. And after having so thoroughly fucked up himself and his brother, he hates that he can't make himself stop—chasing, wanting, dreaming, jerking off to the image and remembered feel of his brother. He asked Dean to be free and he can't make himself return the favor and he knows he's a shit for it _but he can't stop_.

And deep down, he knows he doesn't want to.

 _I think I was wrong_ , he'd said; he wonders if Dean even remembers that. He's never said it before. He doesn't know if he'll ever have the nerve to say it again, so Sam kind of hopes so.

Dean puts his hand on Sam's knee under the table, pinching slightly, and Sam realizes his leg's been jittering up and down agitatedly, rattling the table. "Sorry," he mutters, hunching his shoulders again. Dean's smile is tight but his fingers caress the bone lightly and gently before he goes back to his own eggs and chilis. Sam watches him, helplessly, wanting to brush his thumb over the short cropped and graying bristle of hair right above Dean's ear, where it's thinnest.

 _Dean's too young to be so gray,_ Sam thinks, as he always does, and wonders how many of those hairs have his name embroidered across them.

"Uncle Sammy?" Miria slides down from her chair to come tug on his arm.

"Yeah?" He drops his eyes fast, aware he's been staring again.

"Are you done with your breakfast yet?"

"Almost." His fork scrapes across the plate again and he takes a tiny bite, mostly for effect. Dean will probably yell at him later for wasting food, or—more likely—start in on how Sam's not eating enough. Dean's not wrong. Sam just hates him pointing it out all the time like Sam's not adult enough to take care of himself. Or not eat if he doesn't feel like it. "Why, what's up, honey?"

"Will you play Joes with me?" Sam finds it typical and appropriate that Miria, as Dean's daughter, can't be bothered with the frilly, pretty dolls marketed to little girls. She prefers G.I. Joes and Dean swears he has nothing to do with it.

"Me and Uncle Sammy are going to the grocery store," Dean interrupts and reaches to pull Miria to him. She giggles and kicks. "You wanna come with, give your mom some time to herself?"

Miria screams, high-pitched and piercing, and Sam winces, his sluggish hangover giving him a stab right between the eyes. Dean glances up at him and his eyes glitter, unreadable. "Bite size!" the toddler shouts excitedly.

"She likes the samples they give out at the store," Lena explains with a grimace and smile. She looks white-lipped and washed out as well, dark circles under her brown eyes. "She likes to ruin her appetite with them. And this _zasranec_ lets her do it."

"Oh." Another bite of egg that he really doesn't want. They could be good. He doesn't know.

"It's not like she won't be hungry again in half an hour, is it?" Dean asks. There's an edge in his voice, thin and probably only discernible to Sam, who's interpreted it's every inflection. But Sam _does_ recognize it and it propels him to his feet, sweeping Miria up along the way.

"What's say we get you cleaned up and in some outside clothes?" Sam asks. He feels like he sounds too hearty, too fake, every time he talks to Miria, but so far she hasn't seemed to notice. He dreads when she gets a little older and knows him a little better.

Dean looks up at him as Sam shuffles Miria around to his side, her small monkey legs and arms hanging on his neck and ribs. Sam can't quite interpret the look; parts of it familiar—the irritation, acknowledgement—and the rest of it's a vast unknown and Sam sucks at reading just eyes anyway.

"Do you think Dad'll let me take Joes to the store too?" Miria stage-whispers as he carries her out of the room. "They get bored in my room."

"We just won't tell him," Sam says and it feels like Dean's eyes are right there, between his shoulder blades, all the way up the stairs. He doesn't quite have the nerve to turn around and look, though.

***

"Faster, Uncle Sammy!" Miria kicks his shoulder—Jesus, but the kid's got sharp little heels—and Sam gamely trots down the aisle while Miria raises her arms over her head and giggle-squeals loudly.

Dean just shakes his head and throws hot dog buns into the cart.

"Oh, what a cute little girl!" Sam looks away from Dean to the woman in front of him and for a second his heart feels like it stops dead in his chest. She looks like Jess. He hasn't thought of Jess in years and yet the recognition kicks him in the balls suddenly and he takes a sharp step backwards. Miria starts to tumble off his shoulders and Sam twists and reaches to catch her and swing her around in a giant arc. Miria scream-laughs again, thinking this is part of the game too. Sam sweats but, by the time he's got Miria snugged over his hip and looks at the woman again, his common sense reasserts itself and he sees she really doesn't look much like Jess at all, other than a slight similarity in her far more reddish hair.

"Sorry," he apologizes.

"Is she yours?" The woman asks, reaching to ruffle a hand over Miria's hair. Miria wriggles, knees Sam in the side, ducks her head and hides her face in his hip. Sam has to do some more fast-palming and quick-stepping to keep from dropping her. Jesus, Dean would never forgive him. Sam can just hear him now.

"No," he says as Miria decides this is all a delightful game and shimmies some more, twirling around in his arms like a swing dancer. "She's…ow! She's my brother's." He nods back towards Dean, finally getting Miria in something like a stable position, curved in the crook of his arm.

"She's adorable," the woman says, the warmth of her voice not changing a bit. She sidles a bit closer, long-legged in her strappy heels. Her perfume is a little too strong, a little too flowery. "Your brother's very lucky."

"Er. Thank you." How do you answer that?

"Hey." Dean 'accidentally' rolls the cart over Sam's foot, making the woman take a sharp step back to avoid getting jabbed in the shins. Sam yelps and tightens his arms around Miria before he drops her. This is why he doesn't have kids. Well. Among other reasons. Like crushing hard on his big brother. "Oh," Dean says, without a speck of remorse in his voice. "Did I do that? Damn, Sam, I'm sorry. Your feet just stick out so far, it's hard to see them sometimes."

Sam gives Dean the bitchface, Miria screams loudly, "Daddy!" and wriggles hard, reaching for him. Dean takes Miria, juggling her with ease.

The woman, who's looking a little gobsmacked, sidles around the cart a step closer to Sam and says to Dean, "I was just telling your brother here how lucky you are. Your daughter's beautiful."

"Oh, thanks," Dean says vaguely before he looks up at Sam again. "I'm thinking maybe getting some hot links to go with all this steak, what'd'you think?"

Sam's a little startled. Dean doesn't normally just blow off people—especially reasonably good-looking women—like that and he feels a little spark of something way down deep that he doesn't even have the balls to label 'hope' quite yet. Just something. A maybe. "Um. Yeah," he says, scratching through his hair. He's further gratified at the way the woman _and_ Dean's eyes go to the part of his belly exposed by the gesture, even though he didn't do it on purpose. Well. Not much. "Sure. Sounds good."

Dean claps him on the shoulder, with a squeeze on the end of it. "That's my boy," he says, and pushes the cart off.

"Nice meeting you," Sam says to the woman, scooting hastily in Dean's wake.

***

"You falling asleep there?"

Sam's eyes open slowly. Nearly as slow as the lazy smile that touches his lips. His kissable, fuckable lips. Dean takes a thick breath and looks away, squinting at Miria digging out on the lawn. Not in the sandbox it took him three weeks to set up, mind you. No. She's digging up the grass. In her winter gloves.

"Nah." Sam stretches, his shirt riding up high on his stomach and his pants scrunching low so that the top couple inches of his boxers show. The glider swings with the push of his legs and Dean catches onto the edge to plop down next to his brother. "Just chillin'." He looks at Dean and looks like he's going to say something, then shakes his head and relaxes back again.

"Coals should be ready in ten minutes," Dean says over the sudden weirdness. The push-pull, between _wanttofuckhim_ and…well, everything else is starting to drive him a little nuts. He can't focus on anything. He almost burnt his eyebrows off igniting the charcoal and while his panic had been a source of great amusement for Miria and Sam, he hates feeling so fuzzy, scatterbrained. "I'll put the steaks on in a few."

"I'm in no hurry," Sam says and for a while they just rock back and forth watching Miria scream and run and play.

"Sam?" Lena leans out the back door. She looks better for having slept while they were gone, the darkness under her eyes lightened a little and some of the taut tension gone from her face. She's been nicer to Sam and the kids too. "Did you want your steak marinated or plain?" Sam opens his mouth to speak and she adds, "I hope marinated because I just marinated the last one, but I can wash it off, if you don't want it that way. I can't remember."

Sam smiles at her. "Marinated is fine, Lena, thanks."

"Okay, good." She ducks back in the house. Dean looks back at Sam and finds Sam's slouched down, eyes closed again and his hands folded over his chest.

"I really can get all the marinade off, if you want a plain steak," Dean volunteers.

"Nah, it's fine," Sam says and reaches over to pat Dean absently on his thigh. Dean doesn't think Sam means anything by it. Dean doesn't expect to react the way he does—Sam's touched him a billion times before and it hasn't been like this—his cock twitches like it's got a life of its own and swells so fast he's dizzy. For a moment, he feels like he's fifteen again, when all it took was the wind hitting him the right way to get a hard-on.

For a moment they sit poised like that, Sam's hand on Dean's thigh, Dean's cock a solid line on his opposite thigh, both of them looking at it like they've never seen a dick before. Dean is very still but it feels he's shaking under his skin. He can't think of what to say and so it's Sam that speaks first.

"Would you do it again? If I called—asked—you to fuck me tonight would you do it?" Sam's voice is too soft to be heard from even a foot away, a hunter's whisper. It still sears into Dean's eardrums, vivid as flame.

" _Are_ you asking me to fuck you?" His voice is steady, almost disinterested, and Dean feels a certain pride about that.

"I'm asking you to answer the question."

"What is this?" He wants to sound angry, wants to _feel_ it, but his anger is somehow far away and cold, like campfire ashes sifting through his fingers and leaving soot trails. "Is… What do you want, Sam?"

Sam doesn't look at him, doesn't turn his head, his one foot flexing back and forth on the porch rail to make the glider swing. "I don't know," he says. Then, before Dean can even react to that, he says, "No. That's bullshit. I know what I want. I just…don't think I can have it."

"Why don't you actually _ask_ me and see?"

"You make it sound so easy."

"Christ, Sam." A noise strangles up out of his throat; he thinks it started out as a laugh. "None of this is _easy_."

"I know." For a moment Sam sounds stifled, ashamed. Then: "You know there was a time you hated me asking you questions. I was just supposed to _know_."

And he's trying, he's trying so hard—to figure this out, to figure _Sam_ out—but he just can't help the bitterness that colors his voice when he says, "Yeah, and look where that got me."

Sam inhales—sharp, pained—but he doesn't say anything, pushing the glider more agitatedly with his toe until the screws and wood squeak a little in protest. Finally, Dean puts his hand over Sam's flexing knee. "Sam. I'm not... I'm not trying to fight with you."

Sam nods jerkily. "I just..." His voice drops, sounding like its scraping out over his vocal cords. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doing this. For...missing you."

"Sam..." Dean sighs.

"It doesn't have to mean anything, Dean. It..." Sam sighs and for a moment, his head falls back on his neck. Dean can see where he left a bruise just above the hollow of Sam's throat, blood-dark. He wants to press his fingers against it and feel its heat, hear Sam whine. "It doesn't have to mean anything," Sam repeats finally, dull.

"Only if it really didn't," Dean answers and then they just don't talk any more.

***

Eventually, they go back inside. There's a game on—baseball—two teams Sam doesn't know. Doesn't matter. Dean gets beers from the fridge and they plop down on the couch. Sam likes baseball well enough, but not like Dean, who actually follows it.

Sam's tired and still sort of hangover-y, even after coffee and soda and more food than he's probably eaten in a month. And the couch is secondhand and plump, suited to hours of just lounging listlessly. Sam's perfected the art over many afternoons. He's perfectly content to let Dean yell and groan at the screen while he drinks his beer slowly and watches through lazy, half-lidded eyes.

He's not even aware of when he falls asleep, only of waking, because Dean's lunging up halfway out of his seat shouting something about, "Oh, you stupid cocksucker…" Sam's feet are in Dean's lap; at some point, he stretched out across the couch and Dean let him. Dean's got one hand wrapped around Sam's left foot, massaging with his thumb and forefinger.

It used to be like this. It feels almost like another lifetime but it used to be like this, casual and easy and all up in each other's space without commentary or weirdness. Sam's feet were almost always cold, more than the rest of him, and Dean would rub the ache and the chill out with strong fingers until Sam tingled. Until Sam would reach down and pull Dean up his body, wrapping long legs around his brothers hips.

Dean looks over at him and sees that Sam's blinking stupidly at him. Dean grins sheepishly. "Sorry about that," he apologizes, the ball of his thumb working firmly against the arch of Sam's foot. "Go back to sleep. I gotcha."

And though Sam thought he was perfectly awake, he does, like a light turning out, falling deep into dreamless darkness that doesn't scare him and doesn't make him feel alone.

He's not alone.

When he wakes up for good, it's dark. Or darkness presses against the windows anyway. The lamp behind Lena's chair bleeds dim gold, picking up matching sparks from Lena's blonde hair, and darker glitters from the crochet hook in her hand, jabbing and knotting something dark green and frilly. Sam's legs are still in Dean's lap but at some point Dean's put a flannel over his tee-shirt which means Dean's moved and come back and Sam never even woke up. He doesn't do that.

Not with anyone else, anyway.

God. This is so fucked up.

He must wiggle his feet or something because Dean looks over at him. "Hey," Dean says and his voice is warm. Lena looks up from her crochet and smiles. He can almost forget how much he hates her, his guilt, when she looks like that.

"You slept a long time," she observes, setting her yarn and needle aside. "You were very tired." She shakes her head and clucks her tongue. "You are not taking very good care of yourself, Sam."

Sam shrugs and struggles to sit up without kicking Dean in the balls. He feels soft and dumb with sleep. Dean's fingers close tighter over Sam's feet and Sam, bewildered and weirdly needy, stills. "Just been working hard," Dean says and pats Sam's shin. Because while he's allowed to rag Sam to death about the various and sundry ways Sam is Fucking Up, no one else can. Sam takes a certain comfort in that.

"Yes, and now he is a successful and high-powered lawyer." Lena points her crochet needle in Sam's direction and nods wisely.

Sam never knows quite how to take Lena; her moods seem to shift like desert sand and he knows he's more than a little prejudiced on the topic of anyone fucking Dean who isn't him. He tries to like her. For Dean's sake and the sake of his nieces and nephew, he tries really hard. But the truth is that he never has and he doesn't really know why.

Okay, her hitting on him before she and Dean were married but _after_ they were fucking probably has a lot to do with it, but that was years ago now and his feelings haven't changed much.

"Well, not quite yet," Sam says, scratching his hair and yawning.

"Soon enough," Lena declares with supreme confidence, going back to her needlework. "And then we'll hear of you finally getting married and having kids of your own."

"Oh, I don't know about that…" Sam says uncomfortably at the same time that Dean starts in with, "Jesus, Lena, give the kid a break…"

"What?" Lena asks. "You shouldn't be the only one to carry on the Winchester name, Dean. And neither one of you is getting any younger. Family is important."

Sam looks at Dean, who looks back, and their whole life is suddenly between them. Sam glances away first. "I think I should go," Sam says hastily, uncomfortable. "It's late." He sneaks a look at Dean. "Will you take me home?"

"Yeah," Dean says, and pushes Sam's legs aside. "Sure."

***

Dean doesn't know what does it. They're standing on the porch and Sam still looks half asleep, his hair sticking up at every fucking angle and his shoulders hunched deep as they'll go into his jacket. Maybe it's a look on Sam's face or in Sam's eyes.

Maybe it's just that he's known Sam all Sam's little life and while he may not always get why Sam does the things he does, he may not be able to follow the bread crumbs to the conclusion, Dean always sees the emotion behind them, clear as day.

Sam's looking at Dean and he looks scared. He is scared.

"Sam." Sam looks up at him, braced like he's expecting Dean to deck him one. "We're okay. Really. Everything's cool."

Sam looks at him, that fear glinting bright and silver, like one of his knives. Then Sam's lashes sweep down. "Yeah, man," he says. "All right."

And then it's kind of better.

***

They're at the curb of Sam's apartment and Sam doesn't want to get out of the car. He's out of excuses to stay, though, and the last thing he wants is for Dean to make some smart crack. He doesn't know why he feels so jagged, so peeled raw, but it's like all the defensive flesh over the gaping wounds of _I can't do this_ and _I have to leave Dean_ have torn away and are bleeding anew. He shifts and he can still feel Dean inside his body, a hollow where something used to be.

"So…yeah. Guess I'll see you later," Sam says and taps the door frame. He pulls his arm back in the car and rolls up the window.

"You can leave it," Dean tells him.

"Oh. Sure." Sam looks down at his legs, cramped and crooked in the foot well. Then he puts his hand on the handle.

"Sam?"

He turns his head to look at Dean and suddenly Dean's hand is fisting in Sam's threadbare shirt, so thin the heat of Dean's knuckles radiates through. Dean tugs Sam across the seat, Sam sliding with a kind of numbed obedience. Sam's eyes flutter shut when Dean tilts and angles to bring his mouth against Sam's. Sam makes a noise, quickly stifled, all his body focused on his exquisitely hardened cock and the point where Dean's hand brushes his chest.

They've never done this. Not in a public place where they can be seen, judged or condemned by anyone but each other. Sam doesn't know the etiquette, doesn't know where to put his hands and settles for wrapping his fingers around Dean's wrist, his thumb sweeping arcs over Dean's pulse.

Sam feels slow and more than a little stupid when Dean settles back, their lips parting wetly. Dean's thumb comes between them to swipe over Sam's bottom lip, slipping in their combined saliva. "I…Do you want to see me?" Dean asks and it's so quiet that, for a second, Sam can't put the words together.

"Yes." He doesn't stammer, doesn't equivocate. He doesn't know what he's doing, either; he's the one that panicked and fled. But here, now, he knows it's nothing less than true.

"Okay," Dean says and his eyes are downcast so Sam can't see them but his forehead leans to rest against Sam's. "Okay."

"Okay," Sam says, dazed.

Dean makes an indistinguishable sound and then pulls Sam towards him again. The kiss is longer this time, hotter and sweeter, the two of them sucking frantically at each other's mouths. Dean's hands are on him, _all over him_ and Sam wishes so much that he was naked so Dean could touch bare skin instead of sliding around over his clothes.

Finally, Dean pushes Sam away, kind of hard, so Sam's flattened against the door, Dean's hand spread across his chest. Dean's looking away, panting hard and Sam can't look away from him, the inflexible line of his jaw, the delineation of his cock again hard and clear against his thigh. They aren't always the best at understanding each other but Sam understands that Dean pushed him away this time not because he's rejecting Sam but because he's fighting hard not to fuck him right then and there.

And though Sam wants to make some kind of crack about blue balls and cockteases, mostly he's just grateful. Grateful Dean still wants him, grateful he can still _do_ this to Dean when all Dean has to do is look at him funny and Sam's turned inside out. He feels a tiny smug crumblet of pride, of satisfaction. _Mine. Still mine._

"Okay," he says instead, raking a hand through his hair and not looking forward to the bow-legged hobble up to his apartment. He knows better than to invite Dean up; Dean's at the limit of what he can do, give, to Sam today.

"Okay," Dean echoes and his hand loosens on Sam's chest. He pats Sam once, twice, before letting go.

Sam adjusts himself a little and climbs out of the car. "So I'll see you?" he asks, leaning back into the window for this last little bit of reassurance.

Dean's head comes up and his eyes are dazzling around a whirlpool of utter black. "Yeah," he breathes. "I'll seeya."

"Okay." Sam taps the door frame twice and turns to go up the walk. He gets about three steps.

Sam comes back to the car and bends down to look through the window. "I'm not...I'm not going to call you," he says before he can lose his nerve.

"What?" Dean just looks sort of startled and his mouth is still wet from Sam's kisses. It makes Sam want to kiss him more. It makes Sam want to do other, less public acts too.

"I... I know I kind of fucked things up for you last night. I don't..." His fingers tighten on the window. "I want you, Dean, but I don't want you coming to me because of me. Because _I_ want. I want you if you want too. So I just...I can't call you. Because you're the one with the wife and the kids. Because you're the one that can't say no." He sees his brother's eyes go dark and he wonders if he's just screwed the pooch. Again. _No. Please, no._ "I'll be here any time you want me. Or... I'll go anywhere you want. I'll meet you. I just...you have to be the one that calls me." Sam swallows. "I mean, I'll still call for the normal stuff like hanging out and the visions and stuff..."

Dean puts his hand over Sam's where it's gripping the frame and nods. "I get it, Sam," he says in his tired, scratchy voice. "I... Okay. We can do it like that."

Sam grips harder because it feels like his knees are going to buckle, but he only nods and runs the thumb of his other hand over the back of Dean's. "Thank you."

"Go get some sleep," Dean says. "You look like shit."

_I love you too, Dean._

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by mona1347, with my thanks.


End file.
